Free The Flaming Luau of Death by Jerrilyn Farmer Page A

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    Just then a sword, which was on fire, went shooting out across the stage, but this time it wasn’t caught by the waiting dancer it had been aimed at. This time it came sailing out into the audience, sort of straight at us.
    With some unsuspected hidden primitive island instinct, my hand jutted out at just the right second.
    The men on the stage stopped drumming, aghast. The Samoan Fire Knife Dancers stopped in midstep.
    I caught the fire knife, no problem, and our entire party just clapped their merry little brains out—Gladiola wildly whistling with two fingers in her mouth—absolutely sure this had been part of the grand finale all along.
    And that’s when the creepiest idea came to me in a flash of smoky inspiration. What if Holly’s missing maybe-husband Marvin Dubinsky was actually here on the island?

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(Liz)
    N o matter what was going on with Holly’s former prom date, Marvin Dubinsky, I refused to let it interfere any further with our luau. We’d deal with everything that needed taking care of tomorrow—the threatening e-mail, the glasses I’d found in Holly’s room, and even the Mountain Hollyhock kanji. So I kept my suspicions to myself, and the party went on. A few hours later, Wes and I sat together, and this time he needed consoling.
    “So now I am totally bummed,” Wes said. “I didn’t need to hear from my freaking neighbor back home. I don’t want my everyday L.A. madness to seep into this groovy Hawaiian escape. The lesson is: no cell phones in Paradise.”
    “A lesson some of us already know,” I replied, looking up at him.
    It was midnight in Hawaii, but 3 A.M. L.A. time, and I was beat. We had resisted Daisy and Azalea and the rest of the sisters urging us to join them in an impromptu midnight swim. The ocean is just too big and dark at night. I shivered, contemplating deep-water oogie-boogies, watching Holly and Marigold and Gladdie frolic in the surf by moonlight. Dainty little Liz was out there too.
    Wes and I had pulled canvas beach chairs right up tothe edge of the water and faced the dark sea. We sat together and watched the flow of the tide bring forth gentle wave upon wave, racing up the sand. One with the gumption to lap our bare feet arrived only about every seventh or eighth wave. Behind us, the beach had been cleaned up. Keniki and the party crew had packed up the tables and chairs, the platters and grills, and called it a night.
    Wes knocked coconuts with me and took a final swig. “I’m going to leave my cell phone off from now on.”
    “Your neighbor left a message?”
    “Elmer is really angry at me, Maddie. You should hear him yourself.” He tried to hand me his little silver phone, but I put my hands up, shielding my face.
    “Bip-bip-bip!” I chirped. “Remember the lesson. Remember the lesson.”
    “Right. No cell phones.” Wes shook his head. “I need a twelve-step program.”
    “Like, what’s this guy Elmer’s problem?” I asked, commiserating.
    “He hates me.”
    I had never liked this neighbor, but he and Wes had seemed very chummy since the day several months ago when Wes bought the house two down from Elmer’s. This house was in a particularly cool section of Hollywood, up on a hill behind the Hollywood Bowl. The only access to the homes in this neighborhood was by an old elevator in a tower, and atop the hill, there were no roads, only sidewalks. When Wesley moved in, he had brought his new neighbor, Elmer Minty, a basket of fresh baked goods, and the old guy had lent Wes a power tool. It was that sort of friendship.
    “He heard you might be moving?”
    Wesley bought fixers. Wrecks. Houses no one elsewanted. He’d find an aging, run-down, distressed jewel of architecture in one of L.A.’s old neighborhoods and then, after doing careful research, he’d commit his money and hard work to recapturing its glory days. He insisted on preserving all the period details. He and his work crew restored the broken fixtures and cracked tile work